


Listening Unbound

by grantairess



Category: Ella Enchanted - All Media Types, Valhalla Rising
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Happy Ending, M/M, Muteness, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-07 23:57:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20984564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grantairess/pseuds/grantairess
Summary: Charmont meets a strange man in the forest. The man seems almost familar, but with all the things happening in the kingdom how will he find him again?





	1. Chapter 1

Charmont was agitated. Which wasn’t anything abnormal. His uncle was becoming a very irritating person. He wouldn’t let Charmont in on any important meetings. When he was younger, he understood this. It wasn’t his job yet; he would have to learn to be King. Looking back on his father, already let him in meetings. Had already started to teach him to be King when he was a kid. Maybe the situation was his fault because for a long time he preferred to be ignorant than to face what his Uncle was doing. 

It was his kingdom, no matter how hard his uncle was trying to hide it from him. He was almost 20, which is when he could take the crown. His uncle was becoming more aggressive about not telling him anything. The secrets were coming out though slowly one by one. The closer it became to his birthday, the more his uncle would hide in his room and avoid him. He didn’t want to say that it seemed like he was scheming. But it was really starting to feel that way. He trusted his uncle, for the most part. He never wanted to question him. He was the last family he had left. 

He could see that it was going to be difficult to learn to run a kingdom when nobody would let him learn. It was difficult to run a kingdom when his uncle seemed determined to stop him at every turn. He wasn’t even allowed in the meetings to decide laws or meetings that spoke about what was happening to his people. Everything was turning so difficult. He sighs, so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice how far into the woods he was walking. 

He hears a loud sound and jumps back so he can look around. How did he get so far away from the path? He had no idea where he is, in the distance, he hears a dog bark. Looking around he doesn’t see a dog, but he does see a strange man in the path in front of him. Charmont wasn’t usually one to judge but the man was a hulking figure. He was carrying hunting supplies on his back, a bow across his back and sword at his hip. The sword was large, and Charmont feels himself tense up. He was alone, and so was Charmont. Charmont touches his hip to remind himself that there was a sword at his hip. He could fight if he had to. Charmont was a good warrior, being trained since birth but he could still feel worried, the man was much larger than him and he was alone in a strange place. 

“Hello, I think I’m lost. Can you tell me where I am?” He calls it out, half hoping the man would stay at a distance. He kept his voice upbeat and friendly, not wanting the man to take him as a threat. He told himself again he could hold his own in a fight with this man, but the man was very large. He was kind of a hulking figure. When the man walks closer to him, about five feet between them, he noticed that he also had a large scar over his left eye, and he was a hulking terrifying figure especially close. His face should have been unattractive with a huge scar, but he was still good looking, with strong looking cheekbones and attractive lips. He also hadn’t replied to him, which made Charmont tense up. 

The man looked at him silently, before looking around and shrugging in an answer. The fact that he didn’t really have a reply annoyed Charmont. But he noticed that even though he was quiet, the way he shrugged said a lot. Mostly he seemed to be being sarcastic. Charmont had a feeling he was trying to say, ‘you are here’. In a sarcastic way. Charmont sighs, putting his hands on his hips. 

“Are you going to be helpful, or are you just going to be silent and rude.” The man shrugs at him and walks past him. Charmont stands there in shock for a second, not used to having somebody just straight up ignore him. He turns, ready to yell at him. He might not be king yet, but he was still crowned prince. The man stops, looks back, and gestures for him to follow. The man was too familiar with somebody he doesn’t know. His face was familiar, his jerky movements. The amused glint and the soft frown that was across his face. Charmont wonders how he could possibly know the man. He didn’t even seem real, yet something tugged at Charmont’s heart. Unhappy, Charmont crosses his arms and follows him. If this man got him back to the castle, he was going to be impressed. He was probably going to eat him. 

Halfway through the walk, Charmont got tired of the quiet. He wasn’t good with keeping silent. The man continued to be silent, which was very concerning. He felt wary of the man, even though he had done nothing to deserve it. It was half because of how familiar he found the other man. Something was going on, and even though Charmont wasn’t sure what it was he felt like he should tread carefully on the situation. Charmont felt bad, he must have had people fear him a lot. Looking like that, he probably got ran away from more than he got talked too. Maybe that’s why he was so quiet. But the man still made him feel like he was going to be eaten. 

He started talking without realizing, feeling the need to fill the silence. He did this a lot when he felt awkward, or so his father used to tease him about. ‘You don’t need to fill every silence’ but that still didn’t stop him from feeling the need too. Sometimes misses his father was a deep ache in his chest that he never felt like he was going to fill. 

“My uncle doesn’t think that I’m ready to start ruling, which isn’t going to be up to him by the end of the month. In a month I will rule over a country that I don’t really know anything about. I’m kind of scared.” He had no reason to tell the man any of this, except it was nice to voice his concerns instead of just letting them sit heavily in his head. Plus, the man paying attention to him made him feel better about the whole situation. He must have paused too long in thought because the man stopped walking, eye watching him carefully. 

The man nods, making a motion for him to continue talking. Charmont felt himself blush, nobody ever really wanted to listen to him. Char felt listened to, which was something that he really wasn’t used to being. Most people just kind of ignored him when he talked or smiled at him in patronizing ways. Pretending to listen and understand because of who he was. He looked like he was listening even though he was not replying. Maybe that’s what Charmont liked about the conversation, he didn’t have to feel the weight of other people’s opinions on his feelings, he felt like he was just allowed to have them. 

“The thing is, is I’ve noticed the way he treats some people. Recently I have met with some advisors who are warning me what he’s doing. When I was younger, I was kind of blind to it. It's frustrating to see the magical creatures be arrested or forced to do things they don’t want to do. And they all blame me. Maybe they should, I was so stupid for trusting him and now I’m stuck with him another month before he must step down. I think he’ll fight me on it as well… I’m sorry I’m ranting.” To be honest, Charmont doesn’t remember his childhood very well. Everything was kind of cloudy when he thought about it. When he ever thought to question it, his mind would float off somewhere else.

The man pauses to look at him and shrugged, moving his hands through the air in a weird way. Charmont confused tries to mimic it. The man lets out a silent chuckle, and grabs Charmont's hands, helping him mimic the motion. A voice in his head whispers “I don’t mind.” Charmont jumps back in surprise. 

“What is that? Is that magic? How strange! I’ve never seen anything like it! You have to show me more.” Does it only work when you know the words? Charmont had so many questions but tries to keep them to himself. The man has a small smile on his face like he knew something that Charmont didn’t. 

The man just nods and points ahead of them. Blinking in confusion Charmont looks, his palace was sitting in front of him. He didn’t even notice how far they had walked, how had he not noticed. One of the guards at the door calls out his name, Charmont standing in confusion. When he turns back around the man is gone. Charmont circles around looking to see where he went. The guards were jogging up to him. 

“Did you see him?” When the guards shake their head, Charmont can feel himself getting upset. “What do you mean who, he was just standing there?” The guards looked him confused and one grabs his arm to keep him steady. He starts to feel faint, and he was unsure what it was about. He wasn’t sick, or he didn’t think he was. 

“Are you overheated sire? You’ve been gone for hours.” 

“No way it’s been hours… I was just in the forest...” 


	2. Chapter 2

Charmont ends up touring villages the next week, and he ends up spending a week with a girl. If he was going to get married, that would be the type of girl he would like to get married too. When he asks her, after asking her to the ball at his castle for his twentieth birthday. She turns him down, gently taking his hands in hers. 

“You don’t want me as a wife Char. You just want me in your life. Your heart isn’t in this, and I refuse to get married for anything but true love.” She made full eye contact with him; her eyes were soft. He had a bad feeling her heart was in it and felt his own heart clench upset because he knew she was right. “I have a feeling that your heart belongs to somebody else.” She kisses his cheek and still promises to return to the castle with him. He takes her on as his very first and important personal advisor. 

He and Ella end up being closer to brother and sister. He should have been able to marry her though and be happy. But she deserved to be married to somebody who was her true love. Charmont needed to find him too. If only he could get over the man, he found in the woods. 

She was right, he didn’t want to admit that she was right. There was a person he couldn’t get out of his head. And that person was somebody he couldn’t find. But his heart was somewhere else, somewhere he was never able to find again. Somewhere stuck in the woods. Why did he keep thinking about the man he meets in the woods that day? It was like he was stuck. It’s like his heart needed him, but his mind didn’t know why. He was sure he was just being ridiculous though. 

Charmont spent the month leading up to being crowned king looking in the forest, which is how he found himself sitting outside. He had spent all day searching, but he continued to not find anything. It was nighttime. He liked how relaxing it was around the earth, and with two guards around him, it wasn’t like he was in any danger. He longed for a person he had seen once and has not been able to find again. He tried to pretend like he wasn’t upset about it. But he felt it in his soul. A longing. He could hear Ella sigh and shook her head at him. 

He needed time to think where there somebody wasn’t whispering in his ear. He liked Ella, but she knew exactly what she wanted to get out of their friendship. He took her advice, but he wished he had more time to think on his own. Her voice was becoming to close the voice inside his head. He really wanted to start to learn to think for himself. He thought she was smart, but he was kind of worried about taking somebody else’s advice as he had been taking his uncles for a long time. He was glad he didn’t decide to marry her, she was right about it being a bad idea. But she was mostly right about everything he was coming to find out.

He’s been obsessed with the thought of the man, he sees him in his dreams most nights. He wished he could figure out a way to find him, but that would take magic and even for the Prince of a kingdom it was hard to find anybody to use magic for such a vague reason. 

The night air was very cool, and he felt relaxed for the first time in a long time. He just had dinner with Ella, who was very helpful in all the stress he was feeling. The appeal to remove his uncle from the kingdom once he was crowned was the point of conversation between him and Ella. Ella thought he should be head; it would be good for the people to see that just because he was rich didn’t mean he got away with things. Charmont didn’t have the heart to be the one to command that. His uncle was an awful person, but he was still the only family that he had left. 

His uncle had taken care of him since his father died. He knew he was horrible now, but just killing him… seemed unfair. Something his father wouldn’t have done. But from what Ella was saying, death would fit his crimes. He knew his people would probably agree. His uncle was an awful person. He would have to kill him to show others that it hadn’t been him. The more he found out, the more he knew that his uncle was a horrible person. Charmont couldn’t deal with the fact that he had a hand in other's pain like this. He was going to have to spend the rest of his life dealing with this. He would have to fix everything. He couldn’t be the person who killed his uncle though, couldn’t decide something like that. For his own family. 

He hears soft footsteps from behind him and jerks up expecting a guard to be there to tell him to get back inside. What he finds instead is a man wearing all black, hiding in the shadows. Charmont sees movement and feels himself tense up. The man had a bow out, arrow pointed at him. The man was a few feet away, mostly covered in darkness. Surprised, Char takes too long to stand up. The arrow was shot, and he lets out a yell, when he feels somebody push him out of the way. He lets out a surprised noise as a heavy body falls on top of him, and he hears the yelling of the guards who were supposed to be watching him. He sits in shock for a second, surprised at the fact that there was a large body on top of him. 

He pulls the man off him, holding him in his arms. The arrow had hit him right in the shoulder. It was the man from the forest. He wasn’t bleeding, and when he opened his one eye to look at Charmont he had a glint in it. He didn’t even look in pain. In a moment of what later he would know was craziness, he pulled the arrow out of his shoulder. The man starts to sit up, acting like he was perfectly fine and wasn’t just hit by an arrow with such a sharp tip that when Charmont pressed his finger against it, it cut right into his finger. 

“Is this the man who attacked you?” Charmont was surprised when one of the guards grabbed at the man. It ended up taking three of the guards to actual life the man who offered no help. Charmont could barely see him in the moonlight, but he looked the same as when he last saw him. The only difference now as a whole that was piercing through his tunic. He could see clearly now there was no blood. 

Shaking his head, he gestures for him to let him go. “No, he was all in black. Search the lands. I’m sure you will be able to find him easily. Keep him alive, I would like to speak to him.” The guards take off, all of them with a determined look on his face. He couldn’t imagine what would happen to them if he died under their watch. His uncle would probably take care of them so that there wouldn’t be any eyewitnesses. He was currently trying to make more loyal soldiers. It was slow, but he was becoming more respected by his men now that he didn’t take any of the trash from his uncle anymore. 

Looking back at the man he gestures silently for him to follow him. If they were going to talk it was going to have to be more privately. He wasn’t safe until his uncle left, and he was starting to realize that more and more. This really solidified the fact that he was in danger, and his uncle was willing to kill him for the crown. If his uncle had found out his plan, he was sure the rest of this month was going to be the hardest one of his life.. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> you can find me on twitter at @sluttydancy


	3. Chapter 3

“So, you're telling me you woke up and he was gone?” Ella was sitting across from him, right where the one-eyed man sat the night before. Ella was sipping a cup of tea, calm as always. Charmont was the opposite, tapping out a rhythm on the chair arm. He hated magic. He hated when he told Ella about the man’s curse, she opened up with honesty about her own and how hard it was to get off of her. 

“We were mid-conversation! It was night when the next thing I remember it’s midday and one of my uncle’s lackeys are trying to get me to go to an audience with him.” Charmont hums under his breath, still tense and tapping. Ella frowns at him and takes another sip of her tea. The best part about talking to Ella is that she never seems to doubt him. She never looked at him like she questioned what he saw, she believed in him a hundred percent. She was a good friend. 

“You were in the same position and everything?” When Charmont nods Ella frowns in response. “Maybe he’s a dream. Something you can only see at night, or when you are lost. Did the guards see him he got shot with the arrow?” 

“They seem to, but when I questioned them about it earlier, they seemed confused about what I was talking about. It’s like memories of him fade when he does.” 

Ella shakes her head. “We are going to have to wait till he comes back. I’ll do some research in the library.” She finishes her tea with a deep drink. Standing to leave, she requested he get some sleep and kissed his cheek. 

He agreed they would have to wait, but how was he supposed to keep his mind off this. He needed to focus on his uncle. He needed to focus on the fact that he was about to become king. But he couldn’t find it in himself to focus on anything but the man that he missed the night before. 

Focusing on the strange man wasn’t going to help his problem. He hoped Ella found something so maybe he could focus on his real-life problems. Honestly, though, Ella would probably still be the one to worry about those too. Where would he be without her?

It was the night before his coronation. He was sat in his room quietly unable to sleep. He had a dozen guards outside his room, and one was carefully stationed by his bed. His uncle had disappeared the morning before, as dramatically as possible. They were all pretty sure he would take another chance to kill Charmont before the day ended. Ella herself was pacing the hallways. Charmont didn’t have the energy to have the anxiety that they had. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the man. It wasn’t the only night he had stayed up with the man in his thoughts, but it was the night where he felt his presence the most. It was like he was standing in the room with him. He wanted to know what his thoughts would be on his uncle leaving, the man didn’t say a lot, but Charmont felt like his thoughts came so much easier when the other man was with him. The few short times that he had been with him had made him feel incredibly better about his worries. To miss somebody, who sometimes he wondered if he actually exists made him feel awful about himself. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was crazy, and his uncles’ accusations were correct. 

“Sir, are you okay?” The guard's voice was soft, and Charmont looks up like he had just noticed him for the second time. Charmont smiles at him and nods, the man was nice and quiet. There was something he liked about him; he would have to ask if he could stay as a personal guard. He brought Charmont a slight comfort, especially in the deep stress he felt now. He missed the man more than he was willing to say and he had to stand to pace. 

“I just feel like I am in the wrong now. Doing something wrong, or like there is something I’m missing maybe? I wish my father was here. So, he could promise me I was doing the right thing. I miss his advice, nobody quiet gives advice like fathers do.” The soldier stood straight and watched him carefully. Charmont didn’t look at his face, his eyes on his feet as he paced. “But the only person I can trust feels like myself… and maybe somebody I will never see again. Maybe somebody who doesn’t exist.” Charmont waves his hand, trying to get the thought to go away. He was being ridiculous. It had been a month straight of him feeling like he was losing his mind thinking about this man. 

“It’s like. The last time I saw him he disappeared. Like he wasn’t even there. It makes you feel a little like you are going crazy. Or it does to me. He was so easy to be around; he probably didn’t think anything of me. I still want to figure out why he saved my life though. There was no reason for him to do it, and yet he did. He saved me and got hurt himself. IF you can call that hurt, he didn’t bleed. I have met many magical creatures, cursed and not cursed and I have yet to meet one who didn’t bleed when hurt. I had so many questions for him, and I never got to ask. Sometimes at night, I feel like I can feel his lips against mine. But when I wake up, he is not there. I feel like he left because of something I did. Maybe he did not want to kiss me, maybe I hurt him in some way. The lack of being able to talk to somebody really makes these thoughts go around in one’s head. Do you know what I mean?” When he looks up, the guards’ eyes are shining with amusement. Charmont freezes looking at him confused. 

Before his eyes, the man’s layers slowly fade away. The glamour he had been using fades away, and the man standing before Charmont in all his glory. He looked amused, and Charmont stands there with shock covering his face. 

“You bastard!” The man lets out a laugh, his eyes shining. Charmont can feel tears start to slide down his face, and he rushes the man. He means to punch him, but the man takes him by both of his arms and holds onto him tightly. 

“I thought you missed me.” The man's voice felt like smoke against his skin, and he stares up at him with wide eyes. The man smiles. 

“You are speaking out loud!” The man smiles at him, amusement shining in his eyes with the glint of something else. Something else that Charmont was almost too nervous to put the name too. The man was beautiful. His face was slowly coming closer to him. Charmont stops him. “If you disappear this time. I will never forgive you.” 

“I promise I’m not going anywhere.” The man leans down, pressing his lips into his. Charmont smiles and kisses him back feeling the stress leave his body at once. He pulls back from the kiss and tugs the man to his bed. The man lets out a surprised laugh and follows him. Charmont shakes his head, amusement showing in his own eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for everybody who is enjoying this fic. I still haven't wrote more to it, but hopefully i'll get around to finishing it. There should be another chapter out by the end of the week!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping by posting this I'll finish it. I've been on and off working on this for like 3 months. 
> 
> Please enjoy and you can find me at [my twitter](https://twitter.com/grantairess)  



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